13 best Christmas fairy light design ideas

From warm and delicate to bright and colourful, we guide you through this festive season's most gorgeous fairy light design ideas

Beautiful Christmas fairy light design ideas are essential to a cosy festive atmosphere, with even the simplest string of fairy lights adding ambience to a room. But Christmas isn't the time to hold back on decorating, so why not mix and match two or three (or more?) different fairy light designs? Plus, there's the exterior of your home home to think about... We've gathered glittering array of festive fairy light design ideas to suit all tastes and decors, from minimalist to opulent.

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3. Choose star-shaped lights for reflective magic

Clusters of fairy lights look especially magical when used to decorate a conservatory, hallway, or dining room. The myriad reflections in the windows will multiply the shimmering effect. Three-dimensional star clusters are especially attractive, since they will send out light in all directions.

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8. Create a fairytale ambience with cool colours

Tired of plain fairy light design ideas? This could be the year to go for colour; our advice is to pick a string with no more than two or three complementary colours, or go for really tiny ones if you like a rainbow effect.

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10. Brighten up the exterior with outdoor lights

One of the best things about Christmas is added light from people's house decorations – and, boy, do we need all the extra light we can grab during at time of year. Go as understated – or OTT – as you like, it's all part of the Christmas spirit!

We love this Penguin light by Lights4Fun (above) and the classic Christmas lights ensemble from Dobbies (below) – perfect for warming up the pitch-black nights.

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11. Enjoy a kitsch take on festive fairy lights

Have all the traditional fairy lights you could possible want? Or just feeling the itch to change things up a bit this year? Embrace the kitsch decorating trend – which basically means that anything goes. For example, how about Lobster Fairy Lights from Hurn & Hurn? They're still quite festive thanks to their ruby-red colour, and they're guaranteed to elicit at least a chuckle (or a shriek, if they're sensitive) from your Christmas dinner guests.